The Lady of Han-Gilen (25 page)

“My lord,” she said softly.

“My lady.” It was not a question. Yet a question throbbed in
it, an eagerness harshly curbed, a fear he dared not admit. He would be a
courtier if she asked it, speak of small things, circle gracefully round his
heart’s desire.

She could not bear it. To play the courtier; to make her
choice.

His hands were warm and strong and trembling deep within.
His face was pale. His gaze was level and very bright.

“My lord.” She swallowed hard. “I— Forgive me. Oh, please
forgive me.

She did not know what she meant. But the light drained from
his eyes; his face lost its last glimmer of color.

And she cried, “I can’t be what you need me to be! I can’t
be your empress or your wandering love. I can’t love you that way. It isn’t in me.”

“It is,” he said. His eyes were bitter. “But not for me.”

She tossed her head, in protest, in pain. “Please
understand. I want to accept you. I long to. But I can’t. Han-Gilen holds me.
My squire-oath binds me. I have to live out my fate here.”

“I understand,” he said. He was calm. Too calm. “You are of
your realm as I am of mine. And when the war comes, as it must come, for this
world cannot sustain two empires—better for us both that we not be tom between
the two enemies.”

“There can still be an alliance. If—”

“There can be one. For a while. Perhaps for a long while: a
year, a decade, a score of years. But in the end the conflict must come, and no
union of ours may avert it. Empires take no account of lovers, even of lovers
who are royal.”

“No,” she said. “No.”

He smiled. It was sweet still, and sad, but there was
nothing of innocence in it. There never had been, save in her foolish fancy. He
was a royal Asanian, son of a thousand years of emperors.

He said, “I can take you whether you give me yea or nay,
whether it be wisdom or folly or plain blind insanity. Because you are my
heart’s love. Because without you I do not think that I can live.”

He held her hands; she tensed to pull free, stilled. Shadows
took shape: his guards in their eternal, unyielding black, cold-eyed, armed
with Asanian steel. Her power could find no grip upon them.

“Yes,” Ilarios said softly, “my bred warriors, my Olenyai.
They are armed against magecraft. They are sworn to die for me, as you are
sworn to die for your bandit king.”

She stared at him. He was all new to her, his masks fallen,
his gentleness no less for that it was not the simple whole of him.

Mirain laughed as he slew, and wept for the wounded after.
Ziad-Ilarios would weep in the slaying, and weep after, but his hand would be
none the less implacable for that. As he would seize her, compel her, bear her
away to be his bride.

She was not afraid. She was fascinated. How strange they
grew, these royal males, in the face of a woman’s intransigence. How wonderful
to stand against them; how like the exhilaration of battle.

She almost laughed. She was hemmed in, and she was free. She
could choose one, both, neither. She could run away. She could die. She could
do anything at all.

She looked at her hands held lightly in his, and up, into
his pale taut face. Was this love, this sweet wildness? She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to strike him. She wanted to pull him down in the very temple and
have her will of him. She wanted to run far away, and cast aside all thought of
him, and be as she had been before ever he came to beset her.

Her mind cried out to him. Yes! Yes, I will go. Damn my
fates, damn my prophecies, damn my haughty king who will not, cannot speak.

He could not hear her. He was no mage; only a mortal man. He
would be emperor as he was born to be. He would age as all his kindred did,
swiftly, cruelly, his gold turned to grey, his beauty lost, his life burning to
ash, as if flesh could not endure the fire of his spirit.

She could make him live. She could be his strength, her
flame suffice for both. She could do it willingly, gladly, exultantly. If only
her demon would yield up her tongue.

His finger traced her rigid cheek. His voice was infinitely
tender, infinitely regretful. “I cannot do it. I cannot compel you. My grief;
my fatal weakness. I love you far too much. You are a creature of the free air.
In the Golden Palace you would wither and die. As must I. But I was born to it,
and I have learned to accept it; even, a little, to overcome it. That much you
have given me. For that alone may I thank the gods that I have known you.” He
bowed low and low. “I depart at dawn. May your god keep you.”

She reached to catch him, to pull him back, to cry her
protests. But he was gone. The night had taken him.

And she, utterly cold, utterly bereft, could not even weep.

Elian wandered for a very long time, not caring where she
went, not caring where the hours fled. The tears would not come.

More than once she stopped short. She could still turn back.
She could still run to him. Hold him. Tell him that she had lied, she had lost
her wits, she had but tested him.

Cruel, cruel testing. When had she ever been aught but
cruel?

Vadin had had the right of it. She had made it all a game.
Played at love, played at loss. Held a man’s heart as light as a pawn upon a
board.

And she had dealt him a wound that might never heal.

She huddled in a cold and nameless corner, shivering,
staring into the lightless dark. Now that she had lost him, she knew surely
that she loved him.

Her tongue and her cowardice had played her false. Her grief
had reft her of will to do what she could do. Go back. Go with him. Be his
empress. Raise strong children, bright-haired, with golden eyes. Bring him joy
in the heart of his high cold empire.

Her head rose. There was a window before her; it looked out
on darkness. The deep dark before dawn.

She was on her feet. She was running, blindly but with
burning purpose. A door fell back before her. Chambers opened, rich, hung with
Asanian silks, scented with Asanian unguents.

Empty.

Everywhere, empty. His guards, his servants, his belongings,
gone.

His presence darkened into bitter absence. But in the mound
of cushions that had been his bed, something glittered. A topaz, filling her
palm, rent from his coronet.

It had no look of a trifle flung down and forgotten. It held
a memory of his eyes. They gazed into her own, level, golden, loving her.

Words drifted through her mind. “Alas, I am cursed with a
constant nature. Where I take pleasure, there do I most prefer to love. And
where I love, I love eternally.”

She lay on her face in the alien silks, the jewel clenched
in her fist, its edges sharpening to pain.

She gripped it tighter. Waves of weeping rose within her,
crested, poised and would not, could not fall. Higher, higher, higher. She
gasped with the force of them.

Someone stood behind her. Had stood for a long while,
waiting, watching. She dragged herself about.

Mirain looked at her and said nothing.

Her tongue had not yet had its fill of havoc. “He left me,”
it cried. “He left me before I could go to him. I wanted him!”

Still, silence. Mirain was a shadow, a gleam of eyes, a
glimmer of gold in his ear, at his throat. She hated him with sudden,
passionate intensity.

“I don’t want you!” she spat at him.

He sat on a heap of cushions, tucking his feet under him,
tilting his head. He had always done that when she gave herself up to her
temper. Studying it. Contemplating refinements of his own rages. Even in that,
Mirain did not take kindly to a rival.

She raised her will against the spell. He was not her elder
brother. She was not his small exasperating sister.

No more could he ever be her lover. He had refused to help
her choose, and her choosing had gone all awry, and for that she had lost
Ilarios.

“I am not yours,” she said, soft and taut, “simply because I
am not his. He has gone in despair, but I will follow him. You cannot stop me.”

“I will not try.”

“Then why are you here?”

His shoulder lifted. A shrug, northern-brief. But he was in
trousers, his coat dark, plain, royal only in its quality.

She was going mad, that she could notice it now, when all
her mind was a roil of dark and gold, grief and rage and prophecy. “You need
me,” he said.

Arrogant; insufferable. “I need no one!”

“Not even your Asanian?”

“
He
needs
me
.” She choked, gasped, tossed her throbbing
head.

Her hand hurt. She forced the fingers to open. The topaz
glittered like gold and ice. “Let me go.”

“Am I stopping you?”

She staggered up, fell against him. He caught her. She stood
rigid. “I wish I had never been born.”

“It might have spared us grief,” he said.

She snapped erect. That was not even Mirain’s art. That was
her father’s.

“But,” he went on, “since you are here and all too much
alive, you might consider that your choices are your own. You sent the high
prince away. You, not I, not some nameless demon.”

She tore free. His face was as calm as ever it could be.

It was not even ugly. It was perfectly imperfect. Its cheek,
unshaven, pricked her palm.

She recoiled. He had not moved. “I hate you,” she said.

His head bowed, came up again. Accepting. “If you ride
swiftly,” he said, “you may catch him before the sun rises.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes darted. Her heart
was beating like a bird’s: swift, shallow, frightening.

Mirain was like an image of himself. “Cruel,” her tongue whispered.
“O cruel.”

He smiled.

Her knees gave way. She sank down shaking. He stood over
her, and his smile had faded to a memory, a glimmer at the corner of his mouth.

She surged, pulled him down. He came without resistance; but
his strength was potent in her hands, yielding of its free will, setting them
face to glaring face.

He blinked once, calmly. “Time passes,” he pointed out.

She could not rise. She could hardly speak. The words that
came were nothing of her own. “Do you love me?”

“That,” he said, “is not what matters. Do
you
love
me
?”

“I love Ilarios!” Her demon seized her throat again, closing
it. She bit down on her fist, hard.

Mirain watched her. His chin had raised a degree. His eyes
had hooded.

“No,” she said hoarsely. “Not you, too. I can’t bear it. I
can’t lose you, too!”

“Do you love me?”

There, her demon said. There was Ilarios’ failing. He could
not make himself be cruel to her. He was weak. Gentle. Compassionate. All fire
and all sweetness, and a lover to the core of him.

Weak
, the demon repeated.
He had lost all his strength in words. He spoke of seizing her, binding her,
bearing her away. He had not been strong enough to do it.

Mirain had let her go.

Because he knew what she would do. She belonged to him. She
had always belonged to him.

And he to her.

She rocked from side to side. She did not want this. She did
not want any of it. She wanted to go away, be free, be anyone but Elian of Han-Gilen.

“Do you love me?” Mirain, again. Pressing her. Driving her
mad.

He seized her with bruising force.
“Do you love me?”

“Not,” she gritted, “while you are doing your best to break
my arms.”

He eased a fraction. Waited.

She looked at him. He did not look like a lover. He looked
like a conqueror at the gates of a city. Waiting for it to surrender; or to defy
him.

She gasped with the force of revelation. He was afraid.
Mirain iVaryan, afraid.

And did she love him?

From her mother’s womb. But as a woman loves a man . . .

She studied him, carefully, thoroughly. And calmly. She had
gone so far in her madness; she could be calm, she could think, she could
ponder all her choices.

Ilarios was riding, fleeing the sunrise, setting the long
leagues between himself and the woman he could never have. He had always known
it. He had never thought to have her. But because he was Ilarios, he had done
all that he might to win her.

He had lost her. She was of Han-Gilen; she would never be of
Asanion. But in this much he had won. He had taught her that her fate was not
fixed, that she could love another man than Mirain. That she could be free, if
so she chose.

If so she chose.

She raised her chin to match Mirain’s. “I give you leave,”
she said in High Gileni, “to sue for my hand.”

His breath hissed. She could not tell if it was anger, or
relief, or plain astonishment.

“You may court me,” she said. “I do not promise to accept
you.”

He swallowed. Gaining courage? Restraining rage? Struggling
not to laugh? “And what,” he asked, “if I manage to discourage any other who
should presume to seek your hand?”

“I can live unwed,” she said, “my lord. The prospect does
not frighten me.”

His head tilted. “No; I can see that it does not.” He rose
and bowed, king to her queen. “I shall court you, my lady, by your gracious
leave.”

She inclined her head. And spoiled it all by bursting into
laughter, until the laughter dissolved into tears, and Mirain was holding her,
rocking her, being for this last helpless moment her elder brother.

She could not even hate him for it. He had taken all her
hate, and shown her that it was only the other face of love.

“But not of a lover!” she cried, rebellious. “Only of a
brother.”

He said nothing. His silence was denial enough.

oOo

“It shouldn’t matter so much,” Elian said to Ilhari. “I
have my family back again, with Mirain and Sieli added to it. I have you. I
have the whole of Han-Gilen, if it comes to that.”

The mare shifted slightly under the brush. Her neck itched.
Ah, there. She leaned into the rubbing.